PLG Power seeks $100 mn in London AIM IPO

New Delhi: India’s PLG Power Ltd has filed for $100 million initial public offering (IPO) on London’s Alternate Investment Market (AIM) to fund the expansion of its solar power manufacturing facilities, its chief executive said on Monday.

The firm has mandated Peel Hunt to arrange the issue and aims to get listed on AIM, the London Stock Exchange’s international market for smaller growing companies, by September, Punit Goyal told Reuters by telephone.

“The issue has been arranged by Peel Hunt. It’s their job to ensure that they get the maximum qualified institutional buyers,” he said.

Through the IPO, the company would be diluting “not less than” 24% of its stake, Goyal said.

“We can go to 49% also...but we will see as per the valuation we get.”

Many European IPOs have struggled to get done this year. Large and high-profile listings, including Danish outsourcing firm ISS and British vacuum pump maker Edwards, were scrapped because of financial market volatility.

Indian paper maker BILT Paper’s $330 million London float was pulled last month after the acquisition of a local smaller rival by a US firm convinced it to seek a higher valuation than achievable in the current rocky European market.

Goyal said the company may also raise about Rs 250 crore by listing in India, but right now the investment environment in India was not favourable.

“What we manufacture, we mostly export.... The (London) market conditions are very conducive now. The market is very bullish about solar.”

Under its Solar Mission plan, India is to produce 1,300 megawatt (MW) of power by 2013, an additional supply of up to 10 gigawatt (GW) by 2017 and the rest by 2022 at an overall investment of about $70 billion.

Goyal said the IPO is likely to be launched in June or July.

PLG also plans to raise a further $100 million through a follow-on offering, about six months after the IPO, Goyal said.

The company is in talks with private equity firm CVC Capital Partners to sell a quarter of its stake, but is yet to reach a final deal price, Goyal said.

“We are open to strategic equity investments.... We are talking to a number of players like CVC Capital,” he said.